


i shot a man

by irl_hellraiser



Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Genre: Not Beta Read, Psychological Trauma, Yukio Okumura Needs a Hug, based on that flashback when he fought bird man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27478534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irl_hellraiser/pseuds/irl_hellraiser
Summary: Yukio had killed someone that night.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	i shot a man

**Author's Note:**

> god okay so this one comes from my yukio brainrot and the fact that i have a huge playlist dedicated to him, which includes the song i shot a man by dirt poor robins- go give it a listen it was major inspo for this (if u want of course).   
> uh i guess content warning for minor death and character developing obvious trauma at the ripe age of 13 because of bad parenting, pog.
> 
> kudos are v appreciated <3<3<3

Yukio had killed someone that night.

He had shot a man.

A single second was how long it took to end a life. Yukio knew that now. The darkness it left voided his brain, clouded his thoughts into nothing but the life he had taken. A single second was all it took, and that’s what he chose to do with it. A single second, and he became a murderer.  _ He had shot a man _ .

In hindsight, he  _ had _ to, he didn’t really have a choice. Death was staring him in the face and the only thing between him and the grave was a handgun given to him by his father. He didn’t have a choice.  _ He had to _ .

Right?

It shouldn’t matter- Yukio was a protector to those who didn’t know about demons, he was simply doing his job. He was thirteen, the youngest exorcist in their branch, he was supposed to excel and set an example for even the adults that had been at this longer than he had. Some would say he was even better than the adults that strolled in at twenty, that had two meisters and six years worth of training under their belt. His father was proud, that was enough.

Right?

__ Yukio could still feel his finger on the trigger, cool and smooth. Sweat ran down his neck and his forehead and yet he felt so unbelievably cold from where he was standing. His father beside him, barking orders and begging him to  _ just do it, just pull the damn thing already- _ all of it felt like a million miles away at the moment, muffled in his ears like he had been plunged into the icy ocean on a frigid December day. His eyes were losing focus, and the fear set in.

Suddenly all he felt was the knock back of the gun firing into the head of the demon possessed man. Echoes in the air told him he had done it, and the silence that followed only confirmed it. The gunpowder smell that filled his nostrils, and the shaking of his hands  _ almost _ made him miss the shot and  _ maybe _ he a fired a little high or a little to fast but he still did it- he killed someone, and all it took was a breath in the span of a second for him to do it.

Father Fujimoto congratulated him after the mission with nothing more than an empty pat on the shoulder. “You did the right thing.” he had said. 

Yukio’s hands were still shaking, even hours later, at four in the morning as he stared into the ceiling from the top bunk of his shared bedroom with his twin brother. He trembled like a leaf, and his head was still so full of the memories of that night, angrily reminding him of what happened on repeat. The mattress creaked slightly from his restless movements; he couldn’t sleep even if he wanted to.

His brother underneath him would never understand this, he realized-this was his burden. This was his alone. He couldn’t ask for help. _ How would Rin understand any of this? _

At first, he felt everything at once- all the rage and sadness and emptiness from his situation so far hit him like a speeding truck in the chest, and his lungs weighed a hundred pounds in his rib cage. Yukio gripped the sheets with his trembling fingers and heaved in a great breath- one, two, three- each with less oxygen between them. He began to feel light headed, and his heart raced. Then the dam broke.

As tears started streaming down his face, he broke into a silent sob, bringing his fist up from beside him and biting down on it enough to draw the tangy flavor of blood to his tongue. His whole chest felt like caving in from the pressure and his shallow breaths felt futile in the moment as he laid there, silent in his suffering with no one to go to, no one to understand his feelings. _He had to do it._ _He shot a man because he had to do it._

Shiro would never understand him. He had gotten over that crying thing in elementary school, right? He understood his job, right? He knew what he had to do, right? He was strong, wasn’t he? Right?  _ Right?  _

Yukio pondered all of this as the tears slowed down, a steady rhythm coming back to his racing heart. He wiped his face with his sleeve and huffed gently, feeling no better than he did before- just exactly like his younger self that was still scared of the dark and any stranger taller than him. The memory of the man was still imprinted in his brain, and it still wasn’t going away no matter how hard he willed it to.

It was always going to be there. He could still feel everything from that moment, all of it, permanently etched into his psyche like someone had carved it into his being when he was created, like it was the Lord above's plan for him. This was who Yukio was now. He wasn’t a hero, an exorcist- he was a murderer. 

The anger was back, but this time it was not towards his father-it was towards himself. How could he think this is his job, to hurt the innocent, the victims of demons? Why did he ever agree to this, and why was he put here? Was this his father's fault? Or his own? Was this Rin’s fault, for being the son of the devil? Was it their mother, whom they had never met?  _ There’s never going to be an answer, is there? _

Yukio laid there, his eyes to this ceiling, and an ache in his heart that wasn’t present until tonight. The darkness in the room enveloped him in a sense of security he had never felt in the inky black of the night before. It was a bitter sort of comfort to his bitter conclusion. 

_ I shot a man. And that’s who I am now. _

He sighed, and rolled onto his side before closing his eyes. He didn’t feel like he could sleep any more than before, but he had school in the morning, and he might as well try. He was asleep in less than ten minutes, and strange dreams of gunfire plagued his mind for the rest of the night.

Yukio woke up in the morning without any memory of after the mission, but he did have an unfamiliar ache in his mind he wasn’t sure had ever been there before. 


End file.
